Information management is becoming an increasingly critical key to the effective management of institutions and commercial enterprises. The information may relate to services, products, facilities, consumers, or staff, but it needs to be managed and moved effectively if use of resources is to be optimized and/or profits are to be maximized.
The information needed to effectively and efficiently manage and operate a controlled environment, such as an inmate facility, may reflect the unique requirements of such a facility. There is often a need to facilitate both management of various aspects of the facilities and complete transactions associated with the facilities on a continuing basis, thus requiring the management and movement of large amounts of data. However, automation of management aspects of such controlled environment facilities has been limited and integration of various different management functions has been even less prevalent. Moreover, there has been little, if any, interaction with respect to facility management and transaction completion in controlled environment settings.
For example, in a prison setting it may be desirable to prevent a prisoner from calling particular parties, such as victims, judges, prosecuting attorneys, and the like, although such prisoners may be granted the privilege of calling friends and families. Although it may be possible to implement logic in a prison phone system to prevent a prisoner from directly calling particular identified numbers or allowing a prisoner to call only particular identified numbers, it is a daunting task to obtain such numbers, ensure the accuracy of the numbers, update the numbers, etcetera. Accordingly, a prison or other controlled environment facility inputting and maintaining a list of numbers one or more inmates or residents are prevented from calling has been costly and somewhat ineffective.
Accordingly, a need exists in the art for an effective information management system for use with respect to a controlled environment facility that can effectively and efficiently detect unauthorized or undesired calling activity, such as to control calls from inmates or other residents of controlled environment facilities to victims, judges, prosecuting attorneys, and the like.